Not with LeGarrette Blount, the 250-pound sledgehammer of a back, running roughshod over the Colts defense and leaving tire tracks all over Gillette Stadium.

Blount tied Curtis Martin's franchise playoff record with 166 yards on 24 carries and set a new mark with four TDs â?? including a back-breaking 73-yard jaunt in the fourth quarter.

On the rain-soaked night, the Patriots tallied a franchise-record six rushing TDs and gained 234 yards on the ground â?? second-most in a postseason game for the franchise.

They rushed a season-high 46 times, while Brady attempted 25 passes.

The Patriots ran so much during the throwback performance that it seemed like Bill Belichick was using his gameplan to pay homage to Bronko Nagurski.

That's why Brady, with just 13 completions, didn't engage in another air show.

There is another dimension, which suddenly seems dominant enough to think that Belichick could use this running game as a ticket to the elusive fourth Super Bowl crown he's been chasing for nine years.

You hear it all the time. Balance is essential to winning football. Especially this time of year, when the weather adds a degree of difficulty and win-or-go-home survival games can hinge on controlling tempo and the clock with a running game.

And this is what it looks like:

Blount took a handoff from Brady early in the fourth quarter of a tight game, and as left tackle Nate Solder pulled to seal a path, the running back rumbled through a crease in the middle and broke past the line of scrimmage. Safety LaRon Landry charged ahead and threw himself at the running back, but by then it was too late. Blount had a head of steam, and he stepped through Landry to get into another gear. Then he raced to the goal line, with no defender in sight.

Along the way, he glanced at himself on the huge video screen.

"I didn't look at the big screen until I got free," he said. "I looked at it to see if anybody was close to catch me, and they weren't. The rest is history."

Blount's first three TDs were short, powerful goal-line blasts â?? each from two yards. He was like a Designated Touchdown Maker in those cases.

But the last score -- after the Colts had scratched, clawed and hung around to trail by only seven points as the fourth quarter began â?? was too much for Indianapolis to bear.

It was the real finishing touch because the Colts were never the same after that. If it didn't break their will, it certainly seemed to do just that.

After Blount's big run, Andrew Luck threw the third of his four interceptions, which set up another touchdown and sealed the rout.

What a different type of win. Brady passed for a modest 198 yards but was effective enough as he connected on several key third-down conversions to help provide the early cushion. His longest completion, a 53-yard heave to Danny Amendola, came off the type of play-action fake that can loosen up a defense when the running game is working.

Meanwhile, the patched-up defense started and finished by snagging Luck in a pick fest.

It's no wonder that someone asked Brady afterward what it felt like to be a game manager.

"It was good," he said. "We keep playing like that, the way our defense is getting the ball for us, and really what we've done the last three or four weeks, the running game has just been awesome. It's helped everything out. And it does, it makes it easy when you hand it off and it goes 70 yards for a touchdown. That's a great way to score. Hopefully, we can do it next week, too."

As Brady alluded to, this new-found rushing attack has been percolating. The Patriots closed out the regular season by rushing for a season-high 267 yards against Buffalo, when Blount gained 189 yards on 24 carries, with 2 TDs. In Week 16 at Baltimore, they rushed for 142 yards.

Now this.

"I believe our team is the best when we are running the ball like that," said guard Logan Mankins. "The more runs we get, I think the better we are and the better chance we have to win."

That plan is surely working now, with the Patriots on the doorstep to another Super Bowl berth.